Billy Fuller’s Kosmische ‘Fragments’ (Part 3 of 3)

Continued from Part Two…

What other synthesizers did you use on these tracks?

The main one is the one that we’ve always used in Beak> as well, which was one that I bought. I brought it to the first ever Beak> session. It’s a Korg M-500 Micro-preset. I think Human League used it on the early hits, and Tubeway Army used one. It’s a very basic synthesizer; back in the late ‘70s, you could get your mum to buy it for you on the catalog for Christmas, and she would just pay it back monthly, £2.50 or whatever. It’s been on every big record we’ve ever made, and I used it a lot on Fragments as well.

So there’s that one, and an old [Roland] Juno. And there’s a MicroKorg 700. It’s a pretty cranky synth, that. But it’s really good for crazy bass stuff.

I’ve got a Korg Delta, which is from 1979; A Flock of Seagulls had one. It’s a two-trick pony. It only does a couple things, but it does them really well.

Exactly! I’m really into instruments that don’t do very much. When you get these [modern] keyboards out, it’s just pages and pages of stuff; I just can’t be dealing with that. I just want to know: “What the voice is of this instrument? That’s what we’re going to work with.” I’m really into that.

Broad-brush question: What creative itch does working in solitude scratch for you that working with others does not?

Well, I work a lot faster working with others. I can get on the drum kit and play a drum beat, but I’d much prefer to have a drummer here. Because you can just bounce it off a lot quicker; when you’re layering and overdubbing on your own, it’s a long process. Every time you have to go again, it’s [about] trying to make it feel like it’s moving organically.

And I’m not into cutting and pasting of audio. I even like to use computers as a tape machine; I go, “Right, it’s going to play this from beginning to end.” There are a couple of things that are looped on my record, but apart from that, I feel like when you hear things chopped up and looped, you can tell. A human brain can hear something when it’s repetitive patterns; we recognize patterns. And you start going, “Now I’m bored.” You don’t know why you’re bored, but that might be the reason.

But then on the flip side, working alone [means] I haven’t got any distractions. I’m the only boss. I can do whatever, and nobody’s telling me that it’s shit or good, or “Don’t do that,” or anything. So I can just get on with it.

One of the things that I like about Fragments is that the tunes never overstay their welcome, if you will; they’re concise. Was that by happenstance or design?

No, they were just like that. There are a few tunes that run into four minutes. But yeah, it just kind of worked that way.

I don’t know whether it’s [because] we’ve all got phones now, everything’s quick, and we just need that quick hit of serotonin. Maybe it’s the result of smartphones that my record sounds like this; otherwise [maybe] I would have made full-length pieces of music.

But yeah, it was by complete accident that it’s like that. Maybe working on my own, I get to a certain point and go, “Yeah, I’m out of ideas. That’s what that is. Boom. Next.”

You’ve got an arsenal of basses. Do you find that when you pick up one, fiddling around with it is more likely to give rise to music of a particular character different from what another bass would do?

I can be playing on, say, my [Fender Precision] P-bass. That’s going to make me do one thing. But if I pick up a hollow-body – say I pick up the [Hofner] violin bass – it’s going to make me do something completely different. And this is the reason why musicians keep buying guitar pedals or a new effects rack: because it’s going to give you inspiration. You turn on that pedal and all of a sudden your hand goes somewhere else and you start hearing things differently, because the instruments are reacting differently.

I buy pedals for the bass all the time just to kind of get me another song! And it’s a very expensive way of doing it.

It’s the curse of being a musician…

Always buy pedals the same color, and then nobody recognizes that you’re just buying new ones. I’m sure my wife has got cupboards full of red shoes!

What’s the most valuable lesson that you’ve learned about making music through working with other people?

Wow. That’s a big question.

I would just say: Don’t be scared of anything. Don’t be scared of being you; be brave about what’s inside of you to create musically. And don’t ever try to please anyone else. I don’t think Jimi Hendrix was trying to please anybody else. He was just being Jimi Hendrix, and then when he appeared, the whole world was like, “Oh, we need Jimi Hendrix.” And that’s part of nature in a way, in an organic sense: What a human being can do and the power that [they have] without any outside influence, without anything other than what’s inside of them. Whether it being about selling records and the capitalist trap, it’s just about being you. And if you be you, then you’ll do your best work. And then you might get some gigs off the back of it!

Speaking of gigs, when you recorded these tunes – or when you put them together as Fragments – did you give any thought to live performance?

No, I wasn’t gonna do anything like that. But I’ve been forced to. I’ve just started rehearsing with a band. Two other people: a drummer and another person playing guitar and keys. So we’re doing it as a three-piece – very much like the Beak> lineup – and it’s sounding really good. But it’s been weird to correlate all this stuff that spans time and different brain spaces and go, “Right, I’m with two other people now, and we’ve got to reinterpret this in a live situation.”

The other thing is that I’ve got a 36 minute album and I’m being booked to play 50 to 60 minute sets. But that’s okay; I’ve got plenty of [music].

You could do the dance remix of the songs…

Yeah, exactly. I’ll do some interpretive dance in between! What can go wrong?

Are certain parts of your work more focused on paying the bills while other parts feed your soul?

I wish I had the luxury of being able to choose my musical path sometimes. Next week I’m in for a session over in Oxford; they’re offering me some money to be there for two days. I’m taking it, and I haven’t even heard the music yet. I could get there and just be like… you know, but you don’t know. I’ve got a family and a mortgage and all that stuff. Being a musician in 2026 at the age of 50, it can get quite scary. So I’m available for sessions, painting, decorating, gardening.